During a dedicated Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Direct livestream this weekend, Nintendo shared their plans for the upcoming 5 November 2021 update – continuing their second year of post-launch support for the popular life simulation game. For the first time, this will not be an all-inclusive update, but broken down into a free content update and a paid expansion update which pulls across features first introduced in the Nintendo 3DS exclusive Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer spin-off game.
Free Update Content
For those who don’t wish to spend another cent on the game, some of the new features you will be able to access in Animal Crossing: New Horizons come 5 November 2021 include:
Brewster will open a café
Something new is coming to a corner of the museum. The quiet proprietor Brewster will open the Roost after you fulfil a certain favor for museum director Blathers. The Roost is a new location to take a relaxing break in and enjoy some hand-selected coffee. You may run into some island residents here, too. If you use the amiibo phone inside the café, you can invite other characters to join you by using compatible amiibo cards. If you’d like, you can even invite friends to your island and bring them to the Roost to enjoy relaxing cups of joe together.
Take a boat tour with Kapp’n
Kapp’n hangs out at the pier and will take you to one of the remote islands on his boat. The sea shanty he serenades you with along the way is also part of the fun! You may arrive at islands with mysterious flora that’s never been seen before, or islands with different seasons and times of day. What kind of mysteries await?
Unearth gyroids
So far, fossils could be dug up from the ground, and now you can also find gyroids. Each gyroid plays unique sounds. You can also customize them to match their surroundings when you place them!
Shop at the open market on Harv’s Island
Harv’s Island is undergoing a renewal. With a little help from his friend Harriet, Harvey is inviting some shops to the island for an open market. Contribute Bells to the cause to help make it happen! Familiar visitors on your island like Redd, Saharah and Kicks will have shops here now, and Reese & Cyrus’s shop will offer furniture customization that can’t be done through DIY workbenches. At Katrina’s shop, she’ll look at your fortune of the day. Harriet can even teach you some different hair styles!
Get cooking
Cooking will be added to DIY recipes. After growing vegetables in your garden like tomatoes, wheat, sugarcane, potatoes and carrots, you can combine your harvest or other ingredients and fill up your dining table with delicious looking dishes. Enjoy while it’s hot!
Further support for your island life
Nook, Inc. will offer further support for your island life. From group stretching at the plaza and bigger home storage, to the Resident Representative being able to establish ordinances like reducing the rate at which weeds grow or making all the residents get up early in the morning, there are more options to help you enjoy and adjust the island to fit your lifestyle.
Paid Expansion – Happy Home Paradise
For those after a more in-depth experience may wish to pick up the Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Happy Home Paradise paid DLC, which can be purchased separately for $24.99 USD or local equivalent, or come included as part of Nintendo’s new Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service while you are actively subscribed.
In Happy Home Paradise, you will join the Paradise Planning team, where you’ll have the opportunity to design vacation homes for characters. Some promoted features of this update include:
Work with Lottie as a member of the Paradise Planning team
Clients with different dream vacation requests will visit a new resort area located in an archipelago, made up of several different islands, where the Paradise Planning team is located. You can talk to a client and find out the details of their requests for a vacation home, and then make their dreams happen!
Design dream vacation homes
After choosing a location for your clients’ dream vacation home, you can design the interior where you’ll place designated furniture that was delivered ahead of time. As you continue designing vacation homes, you’ll acquire various design techniques, from changing how the home is structured by adding partition walls and pillars to divide the space, to adding counters, ambient lighting and soundscapes to add depth to the room design, and more. The vacation home themes vary depending on the client, and many requests await your expertise. You can also decorate the exterior yard.
Make remodeling and roommate recommendations
As you gain experience as a designer, more furniture will become available, and you’ll also be able to make more suggestions. These include recommendations like remodeling the vacation homes of clients you’ve helped previously with different furniture, or even recommending that two clients share a room together as roommates.
Design facilities
There are several vacant buildings on the island where Lottie’s Paradise Planning team is located. Lottie wants to make this island more robust and developed, so you’ll be able to help design facilities such as a school, restaurant and cafe.
Get inspiration from the Happy Home Network
Capture photos of the vacation homes you design and save them to your catalog, which you can check out through the in-game Happy Home Network app in your NookPhone. From this app, you can also access the Showroom to view the building examples of designers from all over the world who have posted their creations online. You can follow the designers you like and view their samples for inspiration.
Use amiibo to invite more clients
Usually your job is to look for clients on the resort who may be considering having their own vacation home, but … if you use the current Animal Crossing series amiibo accessories, you can invite a specific client to discuss their vacation home. With amiibo, you can even design the vacation homes of busy individuals like Isabelle and Timmy & Tommy!
Bring your techniques back to the main island
Techniques you’ve obtained through your work on the Paradise Planning team can also be used on your home island. Perhaps this will be a great opportunity for you to overhaul the design of your own home. And if you give island residents souvenir chocolate from Paradise Planning as a gift, they may become interested in what the archipelagos and vacation homes have to offer. Then, one day when you become a veteran designer with lots of experience, you will eventually be able to remodel residents’ homes on your island by making suggestions to them, too!
Amiibo Cards
Depending on where you reside, finding amiibo cards can be the equivalent or striking gold or discovering water in a desert – in other words, very difficult. While there is no word on making Series 1-4 available once more, new Animal Crossing Series 5 amiibo cards will be available in select stores soon. This set will bring “an additional variety of characters to the amiibo cards lineup”. And yes, this means the legendary Raymond may not be difficult to invite to your island much longer.
Each individual amiibo card pack will be available for purchase separately at a suggested retail price of $5.99 USD (or local equivalent) and will include six cards in each pack. Series 5 will encompass a selection of 48 characters total, including new characters and characters never before seen in amiibo card form.
Final Major Update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons
After a year and a half of post-launch development, Nintendo has confirmed that this will be the final major free content update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
